News

Pace dodges UK WiFi licence laws, picks DECT for wireless trial

Just to remind us that digital wireless includes some old, stable technologies, Telewest and NTL have both decided to trial an in-home set-top box which will connect to your PC - wirelessly - using cordless phone DECT standards.

The Bradford-based cable modem company said it has picked DECT "because it was there and was stable." It declined to comment immediately about the fact that it would have needed a licence to run a commercial WiFi wireless LAN system.

The Government immediately associated itself with this "forward looking" initiative, presumably blissfully unaware that it is an out-of-date technology, being used purely because of foot-dragging by wireless licensing authorities. Douglas Alexander, DTI Minister with responsibility for the Communications and Information Industries visited Pace a week after the NTL/Telewest announcement, "as part of his tour of the region's fast growing high-tech companies."

In his visit the Minister was shown this home networking device, as well as the low-cost Digital TV Adapter (DTVA) which will enable consumers to receive digital (non-cable) channels without paying subscription charges.

The home networking technology "will effectively create a wireless broadband bubble around the home, within which users are permanently connected to the internet," said Pace.

In every country in the world except the UK, this experiment would have been done using WiFi wireless networking, rather than the cordless phone system. Pace says it "will comment soon" about the reasons for the choice of technology.

Telewest was equally reticent about its experiment. "We decided not to be pro-active with this," is Telewest's explanation for the fact that it has started trialling wireless Internet over its cables. "The test is being done by Pace, which makes the set top box for us."

The Government's attitude to the trial contrasts starkly with its reluctance to allow commercial use of WiFi wireless without a long and bureaucratically complex "consultation period" - unique in any industrial state. [See comment on this site